Installation view of 《Xenogenesis》 (Faction, 2024) ©Sijae Jang

Faction presents a solo exhibition of emerging sculptor Sijae Jang, 《Xenogenesis》, from December 7 to December 15, 2024. “Xenogenesis” is a medical and biological term meaning “the birth of something of a different species.” Curated by independent curator Yoon Taegyun, the exhibition showcases Jang’s synthetic sculptural bodies created by grotesquely grafting and fusing industrial materials.

Sijae Jang, Xenogenesis, 2024, OPP tape, steel structure, anchor bolts, 70(w) x 180(h) x 50(d) cm ©Sijae Jang

“Sijae Jang’s sculptural body is a wormhole-backdoor to parallel fictions. A body in which functional industrial materials interlock, impregnating and grafting each other. Or, an organic body generated through xenogenesis—the crossbreeding of inorganic industrial materials. Between the estranged fantasies that Jang creates, one can traverse the gaps between different linguistic realities. That very emptiness between languages. As mentioned earlier, this emptiness is an abyss as death. From this grotesquely fused sculptural body, we move toward the real.

The sensation is terror or trauma that arises from the void of language: traversing universe to universe—molecule to molecule—force to force: synthetic resin, synthetic cosmos, synthetic body. This defines the structural characteristic of Jang’s sculptural body. A neurosis-like syntax that produces unstable gravity within space and renders the stabilization of meaning impossible. The sophisticated fiction in which we live today does not permit our escape. Yet Jang’s sculptural body provides the possibility of glimpsing beyond the boundary of another fiction. Though we can never cross the frontier of our universe, at least we may know that countless parallel universes exist. The revolutionary potential of art can be found in the function of this backdoor.” (Text. Yoon Taegyun)

References